from comedy central's world news headquarters in new york this is the daily show with jon stewart! (cheers and applause) >> jon: welcome to the daily show, my name is jon stewart. nice show for you tonight. our guest diane ravitch here to talk bed case and he education reform. ladies and gentlemen, there are many consequence to its growing cascade of revelations about our nation's spying activities.

most recently the bugging of german chancellor angela merkel's cell phone and lederhossen drawers. (laughter) and the fact that the united states pretended to be her onlean boy friend for two years. two years-- ! but perhaps i never realized how acute and dire the fallout of this may be until i saw this shocking story. >> russian leaders are denying reports of spying on overseas leaders. they are accused of passing out bugged gift bags at last month's g-20 summit. >> jon: bugged gift bags! before all these revelations we could have jumped all over this story with good old-fashioned american con desession and smug superiority, thrown out a little boris and natasha reference. done a little yaukoff smirnoff, in russia gift bag rummage through you, but now--

(laughter) i can only smear at how ham handed their spying is. >> delegates were given usb pem ree sticks and phone chargers equipped with spywear. >> if you're a world leader and you put the usb stick russia gave you into your computer, you deserve to have them [bleep] with your screensaver. wow. that is going to haunt my dreams. oh. like i was hypnotized. but it is now abundantly clear that any opportunity for outrage or moral that we would like to engage in when learning of another country's covert activities is long gone. the only thing left for to us do is pretend we had no

idea it was happening. >> the senate intelligence committee senator diane feinstein a loyal defend are of the nsa broke ranks and said they have been kept in the dark of just what the nsa was up to demanding a total sur ray lance review. >> if only we had some way of secretly finding out what the spy organization was up-- oh, you know who could help us, the ns-- oh [bleep] it's time for a good old us of a plausible deny ability scramble. brought to you by, i don't recall if i had been specifically briefed on whether or not this is butter. (laughter) and arbies. arbies, why not challenge your stomach to a fight. so post nsa revelation, the house intelligence committee hauled in our nation's spy chiefs yesterday.

who came before the congressional committee hat in hand. >> this is a tough time for nsa where everybody says what are you doing or why are you doing. it is much more important for this country that we defend this nation and take the beating than it is to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked. >> i'm sorry, did i say they came hat in hand. i meant middle fingers a blazing. yes, the intelligence community's altitude could best be desribed as are we done here? because i need to get back on that walk. you need me on that wall. you can't handle the truth. show me the money. you had me at hello. we ain't teaching radio, radio teaching us. that's not a noise, this is a noise, i'm not a stripper, i'm a dancer. said the director of the

national security agency. but the congress people in the house intelligence committee were adamant they did not know anything about how we gather intelligence. >> i think that if you are's tapping the phone line of a foreign leader, and ally that is a significant intelligence activity that should be reported to the committee. >> i too want to just say that we need to do everything we can to insurance that our members get the information that we need. >> why did we not know that heads of states were being eaves dropped on, spied on. >> i thought we were bros. these folks in congress on the house intelligence committee are completely taken off guard but what-- maybe the access of american intelligence gathering and they invest ree right to be outraged and surprised. well, not every right, no right, they have no right. here's why. >> in 2001 congress passed the patriot act giving our

intelligence agencies access to quote any tangible thing. that's the phrase that's in the patriot act. our nation's intelligence has to have access to everything exaccept-- except wishes and faireys. and that act was renewed twice by congress. in 2007 congress passed the protect america act. giving those same agencies plan the question surveillance powers without even having to name specific targets. in 2008 and 2012 expanded and extended powers, explicitly reswrekted an amendment of a disclosure of the surveillance. so the legislature bewildered at the scope and reach of the surveillance granted them the scope and reach. if i may, i can't believe you stayed out all night and got drunk just because i left you with a keg of beer and a note that said do whatever the [bleep] you want for as long as you want. i mean for god's sake. (cheers and applause)

you can't handle the truth! i shouldn't have done that. with this increddably permissive legal framework they could surveil the entire world. all they would need is unlimited money and manpower which congress also gave them. >> we spend more on intelligence by some estimates than the rest of the world put together. >> there are now 3200 government organizations and private firms working on homeland security. cont terrorism and intelligence. 854,000 people hold top secret security clearances. >> 10,000 locations in the united states where government or private contractors are working on intelligence. >> a massive nsa utah data facility which can hold five zetabytes of data. >> jon: what! that thing can hold so much data they just made up a word for how the data can

be. a zetabyte. that's not even-- what's the last letter of the alphabet, z, zetabyte is there anybody on the house intelligence committee who will take some responsible for this. >> i just want to clarify the record on this, that this committee is briefed on the national intelligence priority framework. all of the products of the intelligence community of which we are consumers are available to the committee. source and methods, unlike any other committee here in this congress, are available to this committee. it is disingenuous to imply that this committee did not have a full and complete understanding of activities of the intelligence community. >> jon: here here, committee chair mr. rogers, really, you're mr. rogers? well, won't you spy on my neighbor. finally, a hero emerges. someone without is willing to stand up and say look, we

made this frankenstein monitor-- monster and it is our responsibility to rein him in and control him, or perhaps he'll go the other way and suggest yes, we know about it and it's all good. >> i would argue that maybe the fact that we haven't had any complaints come forward with any specificity, arguing that their privacy has been violated clearly indicates in ten years, clearly indicates that something must be doing right, somebody must be doing something exactly right. >> jon: yes, ladies and gentlemen, i give you the chairman of the house intelligence committee airtight logic for why this can't a big deal, because for ten years no one specifically complained that they were being surveiled without their knowledge. >> you can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated, right? >> jon: of course you can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is being-- spying is like heal care. if you never find that actual never your ball sac, it can't kill you!

it's like benjamin franklin said. those who would trade liberty for security should never find out that that decision has alr yú grdbd

>> jon: as the great herman melville wrote in his classic mobbee dick, or the

whale, let the most absent minded of men be plunged in his deepest referies, stand that man on his legs said his feet, and he will infallably lead to you water. (laughter) didn't expect silence on that one. read to us, boy, read to us. it's late and our eyes are weary. (laughter) the seafaring tradition is a noble one, thus tonight we examine a few recent maritime stories in a segment we call, really, is that what we're calling it? (laughter) >> jon: i read from melville. it just doesn't have the gravity that we were-- fine. first up, puzzling maritime news from the bay area. >> more than a month after

the america's cup something else is grabbing attention this morning on the san francisco bay. >> jon: pless tell me it is not another ghirardelli chocolate drilling station disaster. still licking chocolate off the boards from the last one. >> four stories high, this building made of cargo containers first appeared a few months ago. sitting on a barge 250 feet long and 72 feet wide. on top are dozens spires that could be masts or flag poles or antennas. whatever it is, it's off limits to the public and guarded by private security, cnet reporter daniel terdiman began investigating and soon unearthed legal documents showing that google is involved. >> nobody outside google really knows what it is. >> jon: that's weird, it a google project that no one in the outside world knows what it is. i guess what they're saying it is google plus. boom! boom!

book! -- book! note to self, google shoulder injury. let's see, if it's serious google project, well, i have a puckish notion for how we might clear this up. you might find it a bit mischiefous. perhaps we use the internet and google it. >> if you think you can get the answers just by goog elling it, guess again. (laughter) >> jon: you have made a powerful enemy voice-over guy. >> i seem to recall another odd story from earlier this year. >> google taking its technology to the stratosphere releasing 30 high-tech balloons that will bring i would few internet to people who aren't connected. >> jon: right, i would few. don't most i would few hubs look like giant hovering jellyfish? i'm sure google is not using

the secret barges to teach ocean creatures to fly so they can rule the sea and air. is that whs's happening? >> let's be clear, it's not normal for an internet search engine to launch secret ocean vessels. that's why there is no bing dinghy or-- bingey, you think i'm overly a recall lad by google bond villainestq and reach. >> google launch a new company named calico that will try to reverse the aging process and extend life. "time" magazine is feet uring the venture on a cover article posing the question, can google solve death? >> jon: what are you up to, google? first of all, solve death? how about first you make all your applications run the correct way on the iphone. then we'll talk about conquering oblivion's icy chest. whatever is going on at

least we caught it early. first thing we do is contain this to the san francisco barge. quarantine t you can't let this thing multiply. >> another barge reported to be registered to the same company as the one in san francisco appeared on the shores of portland, maine last week. >> jon: i'm pretty sure this is how the movie cloverfield started. watch out, statue of liberty. look, just the recap. google is surrounding us on the water, watching us from the sky, and mott for nothing, constantly monitoring, recording every single street in the country and now they won't even let us die. (laughter) am i the only one feeling threatened. i'm beginning to think the i'm feeling lucky button on google should really be dow feel lucky? well, do you?

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an hour and a half a day. >> reign of error the hopes of the privatization movement and danger to america's public school. for me the most surprising thing in the book is you spend a great deal of time, one of the assumptions that we make in this country is that the public education system is broken. you make the case here that it's not correct. >> actually, no, it's not true at all. what i did was to look at all the data and i found out that the test scores today are the highest ever in history. graduation rates highest ever in history. dropout rates lowest ever in history and i came to the conclusion that kids today are, in fact, the smartest generation yet. >> jon: -- (applause) >> jon: what it seems to speak to though, is that like wealth inequality there is an education inequality. because that is an amortization, i would imagine. we have the highest test test scores and graduation

rate yet it's clear that there are certain areas. >> oh, yeah. >> jon: that are really struggling. >> there are-- i mean the single biggest source of-- is poverty. and we have the highest rate of child poverty amongst all the advanced nations of the world. there was a report-- . >> jon: so we're number one. >> we are number one, number one in child poverty. and we now have about half of our states where half the kids are living in poverty, for a rich country this is ridiculous. >> jon: also people van impression that this is an inner city issue. and it not. and there are a lot of areas, people view it as middle class or blue collar, those areas where the children are, they have food insecurity, they have difficulties as well. this is a very wide spread issue when it comes to education, yes? >> well, it's actually focused on wrefer there is poverty or low test skorx low academic performance. kids are sick, kids don't

make it to school as often. their attention is distracted because of all the huge problems, emotional and social and economic of their lives. >> uh-huh. >> and yet these people without call themselves reformers say don't pay attention to that. that's the elephant in the room. that is what we must pay attention to. i mean if you really care about improving education in america, we would have smaller class sizes. particularly for kids who are poor. (applause) >> jon: . >> we would make sure thief ree school in america had every day a nurse or health clinic that kid kos go to when they were sick. we would make sure that every school had the arts, that every school had physical education, that children who go to-- . >> jon: these areas, so the families in these areas, because this gets into another issue that you bring up in the book. the families in this area are rightly concerned, though, with the performance of some of the public schools in their areas. these schools can be dilapidated, poorly

performing and these types of things. there is this movement and the charter movement that says what's wrong with giving choice to those kids in those areas, because the schools around them are not serving their needs, what is wrong with that in your mind? >> well, what's wrong with it is that it is part of, i believe, a purposeful effort to create a consumer mentality around education. public education is a public responsibility. whether you send your children to private schools or to religious school or you home school them, that's your right. and if you have no children at all, you're still obligated to support public education. what they are trying to do is to say that public education is not public, it's a choice, it's a consumer choice. they're trying to destroy the sense of civic obligation so the next time-- . >> jon: turn it into a marketplace. >> exactly. so the next time a bond slew is up you will say well, i done have a child in will skoochl i will not vote for the bond issue. we're going to destroy public education that way. >> jon: do you think, you know, if you were to talk to most parents they would say the biggest bain of their

existence is this new, you know, core curriculum that is being tested. but they would also say tenure is also a problem, the teachers union is too rigid, do you also admit that there can be reform in that area as well? that that can work together? >> well, let me say that i'm probably the biggest critic of the status quo. i don't like the status quo. the status quo today is test, test, test, pretest, post test, data, kids are not looked at as individuals, they're looked at as data points. i think it's all wrong. i think that the idea of you look on your school, you go shopping and pick your school the way you pick your shoes or your automobile. that is wrong too. people should have a good neighborhood school and every neighborhood. one where they are very happy to send their kids because they know the teachers are terrific. the funny thing is if you look at whole data from gallup what it shows is people are asked how is american education doing. they have heard 30 years of american education is broken, it doesn't work, it's obsolete. so they american public

education no good. how is your school, your neighborhood school. >> well, my neighborhood school is terrific. my deepers are gaechlt i love my teaches. >> jon: it like congress, you could look the say wam, my congressman is okay but the institution-- do you have time to stick around. we'll come back and talk a little bit more, reign of error on the book shelves now, diane ravitch. we'll come backith a with a

>> jon: that's our show, join us tomorrow at 11:00, here is your moment of zen. >> i'm going to i is a for the last time that the gentlemen on the left be removed and ask the officer to remove. if i see one pore example of that, i will ask you all to be removed. >> ep